


Estrangement

by morrezela



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Alternate Universe - Royalty, M/M, School Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 13:58:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morrezela/pseuds/morrezela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Senior year of high school, Ross Blanco’s estranged father died. His death caused rifts that hadn’t the time to be fixed before Ross disappeared from his teenage home to go live with his grandmother. Now that his ten year reunion is approaching, the people Ross left behind might be in for a bit of a surprise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Estrangement

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This isn’t real. The people mentioned belong to themselves. I am receiving no remuneration from this.
> 
> Warnings: None
> 
> A/N: This is my second j2_everafter fill for 2013. My chosen film was The Princess Diaries.
> 
> Admittedly, a lot of this is based on how the film handled the death of Mia’s father. I always felt that her mother was, quite frankly, wrong for how she had conspired to hide so much from her daughter. It basically prevented her from developing any attachment to her father or father’s family despite the fact that they were good people. So this is me going through my own personal catharsis.
> 
> Beta provided by cappy712.
> 
> All mistakes you find are my own.

  
Life hasn’t been the same since the day that Ross Blanco’s father died. That seems a silly thing to get hung up on, Jared knows. Senior year of high school is important, but it isn’t _that_ important. College teaches a guy just how over exaggerated a teenager’s perspective is.  
  
But Ross had been Jared’s best friend since first grade. They’d been inseparable: him and Ross and Sophia against the world. Ross had never once cared that Jared and Sophia’s custody arrangements had them going from Mom and Mom’s one week to Dad and Dad’s the next.  
  
Ross’s not caring wasn’t just because his mom was a freaking genius, hippie artist either. He was just that cool of a guy, even when he was younger. Sure, he got teased a lot when he went through puberty. Ross was in glasses as soon as he hit eleven, and that hadn’t gone so well with the long, frosted locks of hair that had been all the rage in high school.  
  
But that hadn’t mattered to Ross. His mom had always encouraged him to be himself. So long as he and Jared were able to run over to the oasis of his mom’s eclectic art house when they were through with school, he hadn’t cared what the other kids thought.  
  
Sophia had always had the biggest crush on Ross. She used to talk about how dreamy his eyes were and how pretty his smile was. With the perspective of time and a little unveiling of some serious denial, Jared could admit that she was right. Ross was a looker underneath all those baggy clothes.  
  
“I haven’t seen those in years,” Helen Blanco’s voice is heavy with sadness, the same as it has been since the day Ross left.  
  
Jared looks down at the picture book in his hands. It isn’t a typical family photo album, never could be. Helen is an artist who is seriously dedicated to her craft. Photography might not be her first love, but it is one of the flings she keeps going back to time after time. It’s one of the things that Jared has always admired about Ross’s mother. She has so many passions.  
  
He used to admire that about Ross too.  
  
“Well, you know, I take my reunion committee position seriously,” Jared tells her. “I want the best photos for the photo board.”  
  
Helen smiles at him. “Don’t take the one where you can see his braces then. He’ll never forgive you.”  
  
Jared’s smile dims a little at that. He very much doubts Ross is coming back at all, but Helen seems adamant that a high school reunion will be what brings her estranged son back home. Why, Jared has no clue. Ross hadn’t even shown up for his own graduation.  
  
“Ross is an idiot,” Jared snaps the book shut as he speaks.  
  
“Honey,” Helen tries to console him, “he’s just hurt.”  
  
“Being hurt is a reason to leave your friends, the mother that cares for you? Ross turned into a money grubbing, parent hating asshole the instant that his grandmother came for him. I was there, remember?”  
  
Helen’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes or mitigate the sadness in them. “Jared, it’s time to let that go.”  
  
“I have to go make sure the bakery order is right,” Jared says as he gathers stack of photos that Helen said he could borrow. “I’ll bring these back in perfect condition,” he promises as he leans down to give her a peck on the cheek.  
  
She smiles at him and pats his face, but doesn’t say goodbyes. She doesn’t believe in them, probably never will.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
“So those assholes down as Mason-Croix are up to something,” Sophia announces as she pulls her very loud and rumbling vintage car up on the school lawn.  
  
Jared tries not to frown at his sister. For all that she is a successful, well respected business woman, she sometimes has the manners of a teenage boy.  
  
“Yeah?” he offers halfheartedly as he continues to paint the homecoming mural with exacting strokes. He doesn’t want to talk about whatever is bothering her right now. He is working, but the only person who ever got that interrupting Jared’s artwork was as wrong as bugging somebody serving up burgers at McDonald’s had been Ross.  
  
“Yeah, their rep is bragging that he’s got a new product coming down the pike. Says he’s going to knock us out of the organic restaurant supply in the west sector,” Sophia fumes.  
  
“Ah, the cutthroat world of canned fruit,” Jared laments.  
  
“Hey, be nice,” Sophia says.  
  
Jared grabs a different brush and starts in on a new section of his not-quite masterpiece. He doesn’t have much sympathy to offer. His entire existence is built around trying to hock his artwork at shows, trying to upgrade his fill-in disc jockey position to a full time one and picking up extra shifts bartending on the weekdays. It isn’t exactly a posh existence.  
  
He isn’t like Helen who is so famous that her work goes for big money even when it is crap.  
  
“Jared,” Sophia whines.  
  
“What? Soph, I’m working,” Jared snaps.  
  
“No,” she corrects, “you’re pouting. And you’re only doing that because you went to see the esteemed Ms. Blanco today.”  
  
“Let it go,” Jared tells her tightly.  
  
“It’s been ten years, Jared. I’m not the one who still keeps her picture of Ross in her wallet.”  
  
Those words send a streak of bright blue across several inches of canvas that it wasn’t supposed to go on. “What have you been doing in my wallet?” Jared hisses.  
  
“Making change for a fifty when you were getting dressed the other morning,” Sophia tells him. “And don’t give me that look. You’re the one who never takes your tips to the bank.”  
  
“It’s an old wallet,” Jared defends.  
  
“Yeah two years old, not a decade. I bought you that wallet for your birthday. The same as I have bought you all of the other wallets that photo has taken residence in.”  
  
“So I like to keep mementos,” Jared says, “I’m a sentimental guy.”  
  
“I’m not sure sentimental is the right word for it,” Sophia muses. “It feels a lot more like unfinished business to me.”  
  
“Well, if it is,” Jared says as he starts correcting the erroneous stroke, “that isn’t exactly something I can fix, now is it? Ross made his choice.”  
  
“And you made yours,” Sophia adds.  
  
“And I made mine,” Jared states firmly.  
  
Usually that ends any conversation they have about Ross, but Sophia speaks up again with, “And it was the wrong one.”  
  
“What?” Jared asks, this time salvaging his painting by pulling the brush away.  
  
“You chose your best friend’s mother over your best friend,” Sophia tells him.  
  
“He was being consumerist and petty and…”  
  
“And you judged a boy who had never gotten the chance to meet his father, just met his grandmother for the first time. And what did you do? You took his mother’s side because you fucking idolized her work as an artist. If I was Ross, I wouldn’t have said goodbye to you either.”  
  
Hurt doesn’t begin to cover how Jared feels at that moment. Sophia isn’t really his twin, isn’t even biologically his sister, but they were born ten days apart. They shared a nursery and two sets of parents and even went to the same college. They are twins as far as his head is concerned.  
  
“What the hell, Soph?” Jared manages to ask.  
  
“I just thought you should know that you’re a dick,” Sophia tells him. “Before Ross shows up next week. Today seemed like a good day for it.”  
  
“Ross isn’t showing…”  
  
Sophia flicks a confirmation notice up at him.  
  
“His mother signed that for him,” Jared dismisses.  
  
“Yeah, well, I don’t know how she did that. I sent it to the post office box in New York that the school had on file for when his diploma was mailed out,” Sophia says with a shrug. “So you might want to think about what you’re going to say to him when you see him. I certainly hope it isn’t going to be something embarrassing like a lecture about forgetting your friends.”  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Jensen hates his grandmother. He really does. There should be a law about lying to the Prince of Genovia and creating false appointments for him. In fact, he is sure there is. He’ll ask Jeffery once he is back home and not in…  
  
“Where are we again?” he asks as the limousine continues to whiz past unfamiliar, suburban landscape.  
  
“Minnesota,” Michael answers him.  
  
“Oh, wonderful, and what are we doing in the fine Midwestern state of a country I am no longer a citizen of?” Jensen asks.  
  
“Buying you clothes, Sire,” Thomas answers from the front seat.  
  
“At the?”  
  
“Mall of America, Sire,” Thomas supplies for the tenth time.  
  
“Because?” Jensen prods just because he is the prince and can’t possibly get in trouble for goading his own guards.  
  
“Because you need something sufficiently suburban to wear to your high school reunion,” Michael answers with what Jensen considers inappropriate glee.  
  
“So I’m getting a make-under. Fabulous,” Jensen sighs as he pulls his iPad out to check the stock market and possibly send his grandmother another note about being overbearing.  
  
“Sire,” Thomas says at the same time that Michael says, “Jensen.”  
  
“What?” he snarls at both of them.  
  
“You haven’t seen your mother in almost a decade,” Thomas says gently.  
  
“Well, I went longer than that without seeing my father at all,” Jensen says. “In fact, I don’t ever remember meeting him.”  
  
“What Tom is trying to say is that you need to come to terms with your past and heal old wounds because you are going to become a fucked up king otherwise,” Michael clarifies.  
  
“Yes, that. Only nicer,” Thomas agrees.  
  
Jensen sighs. “Those people don’t know me.”  
  
“Of course they do! Well… the ones that count anyway. The rest of them are just losers who wish they could afford the bronze level tourist package for the pear wine factories in the country that happens to be yours,” Michael tells him.  
  
“Yes, do put down the other people as a way to boost morale,” Thomas chides.  
  
“Hey, bodyguard here, okay?” Michael points out. “Now let’s get Jensen here inside that mall and make him all middle-upper-class with a mortgage-y.”  
  
“Joy,” Jensen mumbles as he is dragged out of the car.  
  
“Mike,” Tom instructs, “remember we parked by the cowboy boots.”  
  
Michael stares in horror at the various southwestern paintings on the walls. “What are those?”  
  
“Visual aides to help you remember what parking zone you’re in,” Jensen tells him.  
  
Michael looks at him askance.  
  
“What? I was almost an adult when Grandmother came for me,” Jensen explains. “I know malls.”  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
“I don’t remember jeans feeling like this,” Jensen says as he swaggers out of his jet across the tarmac to the SUV that was rented for them. It fits the image that his grandmother felts would portray him best. This isn’t some big ‘coming out’ party for him. There was a lot of money spent covering up the fact that Prince Jensen Ackles of Genovia spent the first eighteen years of his life being Ross Blanco, forgotten child of a hippie artist.  
  
Oh, the papers all ran amok with the story of the so called ‘forgotten’ prince. More than one paper had splashed around his ‘humble’ American roots. But enough money greased enough palms to keep the story from becoming an American sensation.  
  
Write a news article in a boring manner, people don’t ever want to read it.  Still, Jensen shudders to think about what might have happened if his ‘discovery’ had happened in the current age of technology as opposed to the internet of ten years ago.  
  
Then again, he also shudders at the thought of calling it a ‘discovery.’ When his family knew exactly where he was and what he was from the moment his mother discovered she was pregnant, Jensen calls that readily available knowledge. Then again, his father was a pansy-assed idiot who fell in love with a flighty artist and kept the torch burning until he died. Dad wasn’t so bright.  
  
The new hairstyle freaks him out a little. Jensen is used to slicking his hair and smiling and having every stitch of clothing tailored to fit his body. He isn’t used to the feeling of two-hundred dollar jeans and ninety dollar shirts. Then again, he isn’t used to paying for things in dollars anymore either or reading the temperature in Fahrenheit or weighting things in pounds.  
  
“So, I’m going to play your dedicated boyfriend,” Michael coaches as Tom drives them to the hotel that was booked for them.  
  
“Why not Thomas?” Jensen asks.  
  
“You want your boyfriend to be taller than you?” Michael asks as if the mere idea is ludicrous.  
  
“Thomas is more my type,” Jensen points out.  
  
Michael rolls his eyes. “This is about appearances, Jensen. People will dismiss me more easily than they will dismiss Thomas. It makes guarding you easier.”  
  
“Fine,” Jensen reluctantly agrees, “what else?”  
  
“You’re still going by Ross Blanco.”  
  
“Obviously. What else?”  
  
“I’m a functional mute… That was not in the original brief!” Michael shouts.  
  
“I added it,” Thomas tells him. “Prince Ackles does not need you to embarrass him with your small talk and creative stories.”  
  
“Thank you, Thomas,” Jensen tells him. “I commend you for your duty to the crown.”  
  
“You are no longer my friend,” Michael huffs. “In any case, as this is an all class reunion, the festivities will be lasting for a week. There are some people that I have been instructed to corral you towards to seek closure with.”  
  
“Jared Padalecki,” Jensen supplies on his own.  
  
“Yes, as well as your mother, a lady named Sophia and a… crush?” Michael asks.  
  
Jensen frowns. “The crush is unimportant. Reflection has taught me that he was likely an idiot. I am uncertain I need any closure with that. Best he never found out. I’m not even sure he was gay.”  
  
Michael makes a big show of crossing the name off his list. “Well then. Three people. Seven days. Not a bad arrangement if I do say so myself.”  
  
“Yes, fantastic,” Jensen drawls, pushing a hint of accent back into his voice along with the sarcasm. One week was doable. He would survive. He would.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
“Hello Jared,” are the first words out of Ross Blanco’s mouth. They seem almost surreal. Jared keeps playing them over and over in his mind like there has to be some hidden meaning behind them.  
  
“Ross!” Jared almost chokes on the mini donuts he’d been munching on. A street dance had seemed like a great way to start off the events for the class reunions. Dancing, drinking, greasy foods: all great ways to party. Ross used to hate street dances.  
  
The looks on his face says he hasn’t grown an appreciation for them either. In fact, he looks like he hates his surroundings. Or he might just hate the man he is looking at.  
  
“You look well,” Ross’s words are almost stilted and formal. If he was anybody else, Jared would’ve already hugged him and started yammering about how long it had been. But it’s Ross, and their last meeting was hardly amicable.  
  
“You look hot,” are the words that choose to come out of Jared’s mouth. “I mean, I… you look warm and, and…”  
  
“Yes, well, I was just in Minnesota. Perhaps the climate change has adversely impacted my internal temperature control.”  
  
“Umm, okay?” Jared asks. Was that in English? He thinks it was.  
  
Ross flushes and takes a step away. “I should go,” he says only to be pushed back in Jared’s direction when he tries to move.  
  
“Michael,” he hisses. His voice is filled with irritation, and that at least is familiar. Ross was always and forever being shoved out of the way. Good looks overlaid with glasses, bad hair, artistic interests and horrible fashion made Ross just enough of nothing to be interesting and not enough of something to be picked on.  
  
“A friend of yours?” Jared asks with a chin nod towards the man that had shoved Ross.  
  
“Michael, Jared. Jared, Michael,” Ross makes the introduction like he can’t stand to say their names.  
  
“Boyfriend?” Jared guesses after a few moments of silence.  
  
“Sure,” Ross agrees.  
  
“Really?” Jared can’t help the shocked squeak that comes out of his mouth because, well, Ross wasn’t gay. At least, he’d never told Jared about being gay. And there was hardly any reason for him to not share that information with Jared.  
  
“I had teenage angst and drama and was spending time wishing I was heterosexually inclined,” Ross explains simply.  
  
What is Jared supposed to say back to that? ‘Oh, hey. I’m gay too! Only I was spending all of my time jerking off to fantasies of my best friend and worrying that my sister was going to kill me for crushing on the same boy she was.’?  
  
Instead of an awkward moment of revelation, Jared leans forward to offer his hand to Michael. “Nice to meet you,” he offers.  
  
Michael’s shake is firm and assessing. His smile wide and a little off. His eyes rake over Jared’s form like he is looking for all off his most tender and vulnerable parts. It is a little creepy.  
  
“Michael is mute,” Ross informs him with something that almost, almost sounds like amusement. Jared can’t tell though because Ross’s accent? It is fucked to hell. It is still part Texas drawl and California ease like it was when he was a teenager but with a few other additions to make it interesting.  
  
“Been travelling a lot?” Jared asks. Michael is staring at Jared like he is a very interesting specimen in a jar. It is very hard to come up with conversation starters when a man is staring like that.  
  
“You might say that,” Ross answers. “The family business relies rather heavily on export.”  
  
Jared forces the smile back on his face. Ah, yes. The family business. The thing that Ross left his mother and his friends for, the reason he and Jared had their only screaming match over. The blasted thing had killed their friendship.  
  
“Your family business is doing well?” the words are bitter on Jared’s tongue. He is still hurt, still angry even after all these years. But he’ll be damned if he is going to let Sophia win the argument she started. Jared will show her just how calm he is. Nothing will send Ross off like poking at an old wound. He has too much fire in his furnace  
  
“Well, the weather has not been the move cooperative as of late. The late snowfall this season was not good. But we seem to be gaining in non-traditional markers. So it might have actually been a godsend, you know? The preliminary data suggests that we might have a very good third quarter so long as we don’t receive any more unpleasant surprises,” Ross almost gushes. He is smiling, grinning even.  
  
Jared has no fucking clue what the man is talking about, but he knows that look. Ross isn’t faking his enthusiasm to make Jared uncomfortable. He is actually invested in, in…  
  
“Agriculture,” Ross says abruptly, “I’m speaking about agriculture, Jared.”  
  
“Ah,” Jared says.  
  
“You appeared to be confused,” Ross supplies in the most polite of tones.  
  
That makes Jared grimace. He can’t read Ross for shit anymore, but Ross isn’t having that problem. It irritates him because Jared has always been the people person. Ross is the boy with the dreams and the plans and the ideologies. Jared is the one who charms people and reads them.  
  
“Are the donuts good?” Ross asks after a moment.  
  
“They’re greasy,” Jared warns.  
  
“Great, I’ll just… go over there and purchase some. It was very pleasant to remake your acquaintance. I hope that I shall see you again,” Ross says before he moves away with an almost regal gait. It looks ridiculous on a man with bowed legs in blue jeans. Jared wants to laugh at it, but goddamn Ross has an ass that doesn’t quit.  
  
When he forces his head away from the view, Michael is staring at him.  
  
“Sorry,” Jared instantly apologizes.  
  
Michael just leers at him and wiggles his eyebrows. Jared decides that Ross has gone off the deep end.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
“Oh God,” Jensen moans as he sits on the edge of his overly expensive hotel bed.  
  
“You know, if I was allowed to speak, I would’ve warned you about the deep fried beer,” Michael tells him.  
  
Jensen turns to glare at him. “My stomach is fine, thank you very much.”  
  
“Sure it is,” Michael’s disbelief is plain.  
  
“I forgot how tall Jared is,” Jensen tells him pointedly.  
  
“You forgot how tall he is? Do you have brain problems that I have not been made aware of? Because that information should be readily provided by the royal physicians to all members of the security team.”  
  
“I hate you Mike. Just so we’re clear on that,” Jensen says as he gets off the bed and stalks over to the bar in the room.  
  
“You just called him ‘Mike’,” Thomas notes. “Must be serious if your manners are slipping.”  
  
“I refuse to be a cliché,” Jensen announces, ignoring both of his guards. “I refuse to be my father.”  
  
“Would somebody care to enlighten me as to what is going on?” Thomas asks.  
  
“Jensen wants to have wild sex with Mr. Padalecki,” Michael supplies.  
  
“Oh,” Thomas says.  
  
“Just ‘oh’?” Michael repeats back.  
  
“Well, I thought everybody knew that already,” Thomas answers.  
  
“He’s just do big and smiley and, and big,” Jensen sputters as he pours a drink.  
  
“Would like us to leave you alone so you can fetishize his large hands into large other things with no scientific information to back said presumption up?” Michael asks.  
  
Jensen glares at him. “I was in gym class with Jared. I have all the scientific evidence I need.”  
  
“Assuming your memory is not faulty,” Michael reminds him.  
  
“Jared’s penile size is not of great concern to me at the moment,” Jensen snips. “I cannot be having inappropriate feelings of lust towards him. It is not conducive to the purpose of this visit.”  
  
“It isn’t?” Thomas asks.  
  
“No,” Jensen answers shortly, “and I know what you’re going to ask next, and the answer is still ‘no’.”  
  
“So Jared wasn’t the crush listed?” Michael asks smugly.  
  
“No,” Jensen answers honestly. “He wasn’t. I had an annoying penchant for boy bands back in the day, and there was a boy, Chase. He looked like the lead singer of my favorite band. I was shallow.”  
  
“But now?” Thomas prompts.  
  
“Now I find that I am unreasonably attracted to my former best friend. It is most… inconvenient.”  
  
Michael’s face wears an expression of disbelief, while Thomas, ever more faithful gives him sympathy. Jensen is beyond irritated by the whole situation. He knows himself, knows that he does not just fall for a pretty face. But Jared isn’t just a handsome man. Jensen knows him and is very intimate with Jared’s beliefs.  
  
Their parting had not been one of joy or sorrow. Pure anger had fueled both of their tempers, and Jensen had though himself over it. Jared had meant the world to a teenage Ross. He had been a friend to an otherwise invisible boy.  
  
But that had been years ago. Jensen was far from invisible now. His place in the world secure, comfortable even. Though he had not lived in his country for long, he loved it, cared for it.  
  
Jared would not love Genovia any more than Jensen’s mother had. He would laugh at it. Deride its pride and produce with the same distaste that his mother had denied his father with. They were the same, Jared and Jensen’s mother. And Jensen was his father’s son even though he had never met the man.  
  
“I fear that my grandmother may have been right,” Jensen grudgingly admits. “I may yet have issues when it comes to Jared.”  
  
“You think?” Michael asks with a sarcastic tone he would never dare use with his queen. Thomas shoves him on Jensen’s behalf, and Jensen makes a note to himself to give the man a raise.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
“Would you hate me forever if I stole a man from you?” are the first words that Jared says to his sister after her confrontation of him.  
  
“Chad isn’t gay,” Sophia tells him. “And I wish that you would. Then I’d know who to send my condolences to.”  
  
“You’re bitter. Why haven’t kicked his ass to the curb yet?” Jared asks as he sits down next to her.  
  
She’s on her back, doing god knows what under the belly of her latest classic clunker. A lot of guys have always looked at her funny when they’ve discovered her love of mechanics. Sophia has been called a dyke more times than Jared can count. She doesn’t consider it an insult and laughs when her adeptness chases men away.  
  
“I want him to suffer,” she explains. “And I want you to suffer because you introduced me to him.”  
  
Jared winces. He had met Chad in college. At the time he’d been out to experience life, or at least that was what he had been telling himself. What he’d actually been was trying to run away from his senior year of high school.  
  
Chad had seemed like this great opportunity. He was loud and smarmy where Ross was quiet and sarcastic. Chad’s wildly inappropriate manners had been a complete change from Ross’s almost perfect country gentleman routine.  
  
In a lot of ways, Chad had been good for Jared. But where Jared made his mistake was in introducing his friend to his sister. They have been dating on and off for years, and Jared has regretted each and every time that his sister has taken Chad back.  
  
Still feeling guilt and being made to feel it are two different things. “You know,” Jared says, “at some point you do have to accept responsibility for your own actions. I don’t make you date Chad.”  
  
“No, I’m just weak willed when it comes to your friends,” Sophia laments. “Wait,” she says as she slides out from under the clunker, “is this about Ross?”  
  
“No!” Jared reflexively denies it. The reaction makes him feel like he is seventeen again, facing the fact that not only is he probably gay just like everybody always said he would be, but he is crushing on his best friend.  
  
“Jared,” Sophia chides, “he’s got a boyfriend.”  
  
“I know that,” Jared huffs.  
  
“And you haven’t gotten around to mending fences with him either,” she scolds.  
  
“How do you know that?” Jared asks.  
  
“I talked to Dad.”  
  
“How did Dad know?”  
  
“It’s an all class reunion. You know Dad loves street dances,” Sophia reminds him.  
  
“He was watching?”  
  
“And eavesdropping,” Sophia confirms. “By the way, he is glad that your taste in ass has improved.”  
  
“God,” Jared moans into his hands, “this was a bad idea.”  
  
“I’m not sure that having an all class reunion was your idea. But if you’re talking about trying to tap said ass, then yes: bad idea. If you’re talking about talking to said ass and not being an ass yourself anymore, then it’s still a good idea.”  
  
“You’re probably right,” Jared glumly agrees.  
  
“I know I’m right. He’s here for what? A week? Then he goes back home. He has a boyfriend. Beyond that, he isn’t the boy you knew in high school anymore. You’ve both changed, hopefully for the better. If you want to fix the past, sleeping with him isn’t going to help.”  
  
“What happened to the sister that was always telling me to follow my heart?” Jared asks.  
  
Sophia smiles sadly at him. “She grew up and realized that she had to pay the bills.”  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
“I expected that we’d be meeting at the consulate,” Jensen’s mother says as she ushers him into her kitchen. It has changed a great deal from the last time that Jensen saw it, but that isn’t anything new. His mother has a habit of redecorating her house whenever she feels the urge.  
  
“I’m not staying at the consulate,” Jensen tells her. “Grandmother has forbidden me access for the remainder of the reunion.”  
  
“Oh,” his mother says. “It’s good to see you,” she adds after a beat.  
  
Jensen is kind and doesn’t remind her that she has already told him that. The meeting is awkward for both of them. The last time that he’d seen her, he’d been crying and yelling and stomping out of the house with a duffle bag full of possessions. The last time he’d talked to her, she’d been sleeping with one of his teachers.  
  
“How’s John?” he asks after a moment.  
  
“John? Oh, we broke up years ago. It was more of a fling,” she says.  
  
“Right. Of course,” Jensen says tightly.  
  
“Ross…”  
  
“Jensen,” he corrects immediately. “My name is Jensen. You should know because you were there when all ten of my names were put on my birth certificate.”  
  
“Honey,” she starts off in a soothing tone oblivious to how Jensen grinds his teeth at the endearment, “can’t we just talk?”  
  
“I don’t truly know what I have to speak with you about. You chose to leave my father though he loved you. This decision, I understand. What I don’t understand is why you chose to hide him from me. Who he was, what he was, was nothing to be ashamed of. Instead I find out that I am a prince and sole heir to a country that I barely knew existed when my grandmother comes to visit me for the first time when I turn eighteen.”  
  
“I know that you’re upset about that,” she begins to say.  
  
Jensen holds up a forestalling hand. “No, I’m furious about it. I read the custody agreement, how my father was strictly forbidden to mention anything to me about his country or his position. I can see exactly how much child support he paid you, how you dictated exactly what sort of circumstance I would be raised in.”  
  
“I didn’t want you raised in that. The royal life is suffocating! I wanted you to know who you were first, not be raised with an expectation over your head. ”  
  
“No, you made a judgment call that made me unprepared. But worse than that, your actions made certain that I never truly knew my father. I have letters and gifts, but I don’t know him. That was your selfish request and yours alone. It’s just a pity that he was so in love with you that he let you have your way.”  
  
Tears are in her eyes now, and Jensen knows that he wasn’t supposed to make her cry. His visit was supposed to be about settling his past, not fighting over it.  
  
“You’ve changed,” she tells him.  
  
“I have,” Jensen concedes.  
  
“I didn’t raise you to be this,” she says.  
  
“I know,” Jensen acknowledges. “I had to learn on my own.”  
  
~~~~~~~~~  
  
“So your visit with your mom didn’t go well,” Jared Padalecki says as he helps himself to a chair at Jensen’s table. He has two bottles of beer in his hands. The labels proclaim that they are from an organic microbrewery.  
  
Jared shoves one of the bottles at him. Jensen stares at it.  
  
“Hey, I promise I didn’t slip anything in it,” Jared jokes.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Jensen can see Thomas moving in, surveying for threats. Jensen waves him of subtly.  
  
“I just don’t drink beer,” Jensen finally says.  
  
Jared doesn’t look upset, he looks morally outraged. “You don’t drink beer? What red-blooded American man who went to college doesn’t drink beer? Beer is a, a staple of life.”  
  
There isn’t a chance that Jensen is going to start explaining how his college years were spent learning to tell the differences between wines, champagnes, cognacs and scotches. He doesn’t look fondly on his drinking exploits because most of them were part of his government sanctioned tutelage. He tasted beer, but Genovian pears were more sought after for fruit wines than ales.  
  
“I never developed a taste for it,” Jensen says instead. “But if you want to buy me a drink, I’ll take a scotch, neat.”  
  
Jared frowns, but gets up. “Hold my spot for me,” he says like there is any danger in Jensen giving away a seat at his own, formerly private, table.  
  
Jared comes back quickly enough, drink glass in hand. “You look like you could use a double,” he explains as he puts the drink down before Jensen.  
  
“What I could use is the whole bottle,” Jensen tells him.  
  
“Yeah,” Jared says, “I heard it didn’t go well.”  
  
Jensen snorts into his glass and downs half of it. “Mom called you to cry, how sweet.”  
  
“Look, I don’t want to fight,” Jared says. “But she misses you, and we’ve kept in touch.”  
  
“She misses who she wanted me to be,” Jensen corrects, “and who she wanted me to be was you.”  
  
“She…”  
  
“Kept some big goddamned secrets from me, secrets I deserved to know,” Jensen finishes for him. “She kept my father from me too, but I guess that’s common when you don’t like your ex. Thing is, Jared, you don’t know what she did, so I’d appreciate it if you don’t get involved…. Again.”  
  
“Maybe if you told me, I’d have understood. Maybe I’d understand now,” Jared reasons.  
  
“It’s really better you don’t,” Jensen tells him.  
  
“Why?” Jared demands.  
  
“Because it would make your life difficult.”  
  
“My life or your life?” Jared challenges as he takes another swig from his bottle.  
  
“Yours. Mine too, but mostly yours,” Jensen answers honestly. He doubts that Jared is ready for the press to come bearing down on him looking for interviews. There isn’t much ‘dirt’ that Jared has on Jensen because Jensen was a pretty good kid. But the right reporter can make anybody’s life miserable.  
  
“What if I don’t care?” Jared asks.  
  
“About your life?” Jensen jokes, but is surprised when Jared only shrugs and starts peeling the label on his bottle in response. “Seriously?” Jensen asks. That isn’t the Jared he knew, but it still is a stretch for him to see Jared as anything but optimistic.  
  
“It’s not that my life sucks,” Jared admits. “But it does, you know? I’m not booking shows, and I’m living on bartending tips and part-time coverage at a fourth rate radio station.”  
  
“And you want more trouble?”  
  
“Sometimes other people’s troubles are easier to deal with than your own. Besides, this is my great opportunity. I get to make amends and all that crap,” Jared tacks on with a slow smile.  
  
Jensen returns the smile but shakes his head. “I appreciate it. I think it’s great, but…”  
  
Jensen doesn’t get to finish his sentence because a bar fight breaks out. There are a couple of guys screaming at each other about a girl. Apparently one guy stole the other guy’s girl back in high school. What makes it depressing is that they look like they’re at least fifteen to twenty years older than Jensen.  
  
“Time doesn’t heal all wounds,” Jensen mutters to himself as Michael wends his way over from the corner where Jensen had banished to earlier.  
  
Jared makes a very unhappy face at Michael’s appearance. “I didn’t realize your boyfriend was here,” he says. The tone is friendly, would be enthusiastic on anybody else’s voice, but Jensen knows better. Jared, for some unfathomable reason, doesn’t like Michael.  
  
Michael plays up the boyfriend card well. He points at his watch and then at the people and then out to the parking lot. Jensen knows that he us making orders for Jensen to get his royal ass to safety, but he can imagine that Jared thinks otherwise.  
  
“We can go somewhere else. There are better bars in the city,” Jared offers.  
  
Jensen feels surprised by that, and his wayward bodyguard takes full advantage of that. Before Jensen can form words, Michael is nodding and grinning and somehow conveying that they can all ride _together_ to the next place. He’s conveying how he is the designated driver for the night and how much he wants Jared and Jensen to have fun with such sincerity that guilt is starting to creep onto Jared’s face.  
  
And what is Jensen going to do? Deny the offer? It will only make him look bad in Jared’s eyes. There is no reason to object.  
  
He ends up regretting his decision. For one thing, taking Jared with them means that Thomas gets left behind. There is no easy way to explain him away unless Jensen wants to give Jared a very unseemly impression of his life.  
  
But the bar then end up at has even more people in it, and they are drunker than sailors. It is decidedly out of Jensen’s element. Even in university, he’d gone to upscale clubs where the cover charge was exorbitant because it paid for the discretion of the employees. He knows how to live middleclass but not how to drink that way.  
  
But Jared is perfectly comfortable with the crowd, and Mike disappears before Jensen has a chance to use him as an excuse. The only benefit to the evening is that the place is too loud to converse in. Jensen has time to sit and mull over the pros and cons of talking to Jared about his issues.  
  
On the one hand, he doesn’t know Jared now. On the other hand, Jensen doesn’t know many people that well nowadays. He has Michael and Thomas, but there is a distance there that cannot be overcome. Someday one of them might die protecting him. That isn’t something a man can just ignore when forming a relationship.  
  
Jensen’s other friends are all well aware of his political standing. He is either their prince or their political ally. Both of those titles bring connotations to his conversations that he has to constantly be aware of. He isn’t just Jensen to anybody but his grandmother.  
  
Of course, he isn’t just Jensen to Jared either. Jared calls him ‘Ross,’ and thinks that Jensen is in business out east. He isn’t exactly wrong. But Ross is the Jensen’s fourth middle name, and he is significantly farther east than Jared thinks.  
  
Jensen lacks outside perspective. It is not a failing of his anymore than it is for any one man, but it is harder for him to gain. Jared’s input on trade agreements and tax law would not likely be helpful, but it could be very helpful on more personal matters.  
  
Then again, Jensen knows well the kind of burden a long held secret can place on a man’s life. Jared might be both upset and undone by Jensen’s secrets.  
  
The whole mess is a quandary that has Jensen drinking whatever it is that Jared keeps brining him. It starts out with scotch, but four drinks in, his glass is tall and fruity and very, very pink. There is no umbrella in it, but that is because Jared has put the decoration in his hair. Jensen doesn’t think a man is supposed to drink beer while he has an umbrella in his hair, but Jared just laughs when he imparts his wisdom.  
  
It is a bit offending, to be honest. Jensen has been thoroughly trained on situational appropriateness. He has people that tell him these things. He makes the mistake of telling Jared that, and it only makes the big galoot laugh even harder.  
  
“What’s so funny?” Sophia asks as she shoves her brother off the barstool that he’d been occupying.  
  
Jensen hadn’t even seen her get close, hadn’t even known she was in the bar.  
  
“Ross is a pretty, pretty rich boy,” Jared informs his sister. “He has _manners_.”  
  
Sophia wrinkles her pretty nose at her brother. “How much have you had to drink?” she asks.  
  
“Enough,” Jared says defensively.  
  
“How much is enough?”  
  
“Aww, Soph, don’t,” Jared whines. It’s kind of pathetic.  
  
“Jared, you know you lose all your inhibitions when you’re drunk,” Sophia says. Her words are stern, almost reprimanding.  
  
“It’s okay,” Jensen says, trying to diffuse whatever sibling fight is about to erupt. Sophia stares at her brother for a few more seconds before she breaks eye contact. It’s been ten years, but Jensen can still recognize Sophia’s unsaid warning that they’re discussion isn’t done.  
  
“Where’s your boyfriend? I’d like to meet the man you finally ended up with,” Sophia asks Jensen.  
  
“Michael?” Jensen replies dumbly. He hasn’t a clue where Michael has taken up post at. He saw Thomas arrive earlier, can spot him easily over the crowd of people, but he doesn’t think that Jared is drunk enough to buy that Thomas is Michael.  
  
“He doesn’t have a nickname? Just ‘Michael’?” Sophia teases.  
  
Jensen shrugs. What is he supposed to tell her? The truth? Somehow he doesn’t think that, “I call my bodyguards by their given names because it gives me emotional distance from them in case they die,” is a good thing to drop into a casual conversation.  
  
“Did you pay him to be your boyfriend? Is this like one of those wedding date films?” Jared drunkenly asks. He looks absurdly hopeful and the notion.  
  
“Jared!” Sophia hisses, swatting her brother in the stomach. “Behave!”  
  
Jensen is about to open his mouth to say something when a suspicious movement catches his eye. He knows that gait, those halt-move-halt steps aren’t anything a man of his position isn’t uncomfortably familiar with.  
  
Michael is already accosting the photographer by the time that Jensen is turning his body away, giving the man’s lens a bad view. But he knows, deep inside, that he is screwed. The consulate would more than willingly confirm Jensen’s presence in town and give out an entire list of ‘official’ reasons why he is that.  
  
But Jensen being on national business doesn’t sell papers. Jensen drunkenly chatting up a woman as good looking as Sophia will. He isn’t attached, thank God, or he’d have a scandal on his hands.  
  
“We need to get out of here,” Thomas says as he comes over, grabbing Jensen’s arm.  
  
“Hey!” Jared’s voice is a little too loud, but it is very challenging.  
  
“It’s okay,” Jensen instantly tries placating his old friend. He doesn’t need a scene.  
  
“The hell it is,” Jared argues. “Who are you?” he demands of Thomas.  
  
Thomas ignores him. “There are more,” he tells Jensen meaningfully.  
  
“Fuck,” Jensen replies. “Michael?”  
  
“Is retrieving the vehicle,” Thomas informs him as his eyes scan over the crowd. “This isn’t good.”  
  
“What isn’t good?” Sophia asks, far more sober and alert than her brother.  
  
“There’s just a…”  
  
“Highness, really. Explanations later?” Thomas interrupts as he firms his grip on Jensen’s arm and starts moving him.  
  
“Highness?” Sophia squeaks as she follows after them.  
  
“What is this? Some sort of kinky threesome-BDSM thing?” Jared asks right after her.  
  
“You should both get in your vehicles and leave,” Thomas advises them as he hustles Jensen into the backseat of the SUV. “Don’t take phone calls from people you don’t know,” is his last bit of advice before he slams the door shut and tells Michael to drive.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The gossip websites are an absolute mess by the next morning. Jensen is declared as being a closet kink addict. He is said to be taking flights to America to indulge in bi-sexual threeways involving whips and chains. He can only imagine what the revised ‘articles’ will say, likely something about having a twin kink.  
  
“We have a leak,” Michal tells him. “There is no way that some punk reporter recognized you. Even if he did, he certainly didn’t call all his friends about it so that they could share the scoop.”  
  
Jensen nods. “How much play do you think it’s going to get stateside?”  
  
Thomas shrugs. “They’re American siblings, and they have old ties to you. You get the right gossip columnist, and it could blow up on you.”  
  
“I need to talk to Jared,” Jensen says.  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“I’m not going to let him find out because some reporter finds his name and number,” Jensen says firmly. “Now go fetch the car.”  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
“I feel like crap,” Jared whines to his sister.  
  
“You should know your alcohol limits by now,” Sophia reminds him.  
  
“You don’t have to be over here babying me,” Jared tells her as he sips at the water she’s brought him. His apartment is cramped and cluttered with artwork. The only reason that Jared likes being at his place is because it is his. He doesn’t have to put up with a roommate or ask his parents for help.  
  
Other than that, the place sucks. It is on the top floor of an oddly shaped building. The ceilings are a mess of angles where the roof joints come together. The rooms have odd angles that aren’t good for anything but hanging Jared’s painting on and the bathroom is amazingly tiny.  
  
“Thought you might want to talk,” Sophia says as he hands the glass back to her.  
  
“About what? The fact that last night was seriously weird? There isn’t much that I can add to that conversation, is there? It was weird. Ross is the only one who can shed any light on that, and I don’t exactly have his phone number.”  
  
“You have his mom’s,” Sophia points out.  
  
“I do, and I’m not going to call it.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“Don’t look at me like that,” Jared orders her. “I’m just giving Ross the benefit of the doubt here. Call it recompense for the whole teenage meltdown thing I did.”  
  
There is an abrupt knock at Jared’s door, and Sophia does to answer it. Jared is expecting Tony from down the hall to be out there asking for a cup of sugar again, like if he tries that much harder, Jared will fall for his line and date him.  
  
What he isn’t expecting is to hear Ross’s voice. Jared feels terrible and looks like crap, but Ross was with him during puberty. He has looked worse.  
  
Jared almost turns back around when he sees four people in his living room instead of two. But Sophia sees him, and Jared is forced to keep moving. Ross is one thing, but the boyfriend and… other friend is a different matter. Jared wishes that he had at least combed his hair first.  
  
“Hey,” Jared says as he flops down in his comfy easy chair. He got it at the Goodwill. It was only twelve dollars and is one of the best investments that he has ever made.  
  
“Hi,” Ross says back. He looks awkward and nervous. Jared is half afraid that he really is about to come out with the revelation that he is in a kinky-threeway relationship with the other two guys.  
  
“I need to explain some things to you, both of you.” Ross nods at Jared and his sister.  
  
“I suppose that the first thing we should go over is that my name isn’t Ross,” he says.  
  
“Bullshit,” Jared denies. Mike’s lips quirk and the other guy just looks uncomfortable.  
  
“Technically, I suppose you’re right. Ross is on my birth certificate. It’s just a little farther down the list of names than the other ones,” Ross tells him. “But I go by Jensen these days.”  
  
“So you changed your name?” Sophia sounds flabbergasted by the idea.  
  
“Not exactly,” Ross says. “My mother was just using the wrong names. I was never a Blanco, and my given first name is Jensen.”  
  
“Well, that’s weird,” Jared says. “Why would she do that? Are you like, a criminal or something? I’ve known you since you were eight. Were you a mastermind evildoer when you were seven?”  
  
Mika laughs at that. He laughs. Jared frowns. “I thought he was mute.”  
  
“Only in my dreams,” Ross or rather _Jensen_ mutters. “Michael is my bodyguard as is Thomas.”  
  
“Bodyguards?” Sophia echoes.  
  
Jared agrees with her sentiment. His criminal mastermind theory is gaining validity.  
  
“No. I’m a prince,” Jensen explains.  
  
“You sure are,” Jared scoffs.  
  
“I’m not joking, Jared,” Jensen tells him. “I’m the crowned prince of Genovia. My father was prince before me and left no other heirs. When my grandmother dies, I will inherit the throne.”  
  
“You… what?” Jared chokes.  
  
“I brought pictures,” Michael offers, holding out an iPad to Jared. The first thing that pops up is a website with a salacious story about Jensen and Sophia. The headline proclaims that Prince Jensen of Genovia is seeking to sow his royal oats back in the country that raised him.  
  
“Michael!” Jensen snaps. “Could you find nothing that was more appropriate?”  
  
“No,” Michael says cheerfully. “I thought you might want to express the importance of why they shouldn’t take dinners from strange reporters looking for scoops.”  
  
“At least I look good,” Sophia says as she hangs over Jared’s shoulder to look.  
  
“I’ve got an umbrella in my hair,” Jared bemoans.  
  
“You’re about to have a throng of reporters asking you about it,” Jensen tells them. “I might not be a household name over here, but I sell enough papers in Europe.”  
  
“Great, so what do we do? Say ‘no comment’?” Sophia asks, instantly all business. Jared feels a little angry about that. She should be sitting there not wrapping her mind around it, giving her brother support in his incomprehension.  
  
“Ideally, yes,” Jensen agrees. “If you give them information, they’ll just keep coming back until the story dries up.”  
  
“You’re a prince?” Jared asks. “Like, like you’re Sleeping Beauty or something?”  
  
“Gold of sunshine in your hair, lips that shame the red, red rose: he’s got a point,” Michael says. “Maybe we need to keep you away from spinning wheels.”  
  
“I want you to know that you watch too many movies,” Thomas pipes up for the first time. He is glowering at his counterpart, but Jared can see a hint of amusement in his eyes.  
  
Jensen though, responds to him seriously. “I told you that my secrets were complicated.”  
  
“This is what you fought with your mother about.”  
  
“It sort of seemed like an important thing to know,” Jensen says. “And she kept me away from my father because of it. Kept me from being able to function as well as I should.”  
  
“Why are you here then?” Sophia asks. “A school reunion isn’t that important.”  
  
“I was sent here to seek closure, I suppose you would say,” Jensen admits.  
  
“Have you found it?” Jared asks softly.  
  
“With my mother? No. I haven’t. I’m not sure I will be able to do so. She refuses to see how her decisions impacted my life, and I am too stubborn to let it go. Call it a failing.”  
  
Jared can see that. “I suppose that you’re going to be going back home then?” he asks.  
  
“I will,” Jensen confirms. “It is for the best that I not stay around any longer. The paparazzi will be looking for me.”  
  
“Can you at least stay for breakfast?” Jared asks.  
  
“I can do that.”  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Life hasn’t been the same since Jensen Ackles introduced himself into Jared’s life. The press was easy enough to deal with after a while, but Jared’s work suffered. The radio station wasn’t interested in having their lines jammed with foreign calls when Jared picked up a shift and the paparazzi didn’t buy much in the way of drinks when he was bartending.  
  
It was a short lived thing, but by the time the vultures finally took off for fresher meat, Jared had managed to lose both of his paying jobs. It sucked. What sucked worse was that he ended up getting hired by his sister’s company, and he knew that she was the only reason he got the job.  
  
“I shouldn’t even be here,” Jared complains again as they leave the plane. He feels like he needs to say it at least once a week.  
  
“You’re feeling guilt over stupid things,” Sophia reminds him. “Do I look like I’m objecting to getting put on this business trip? Because I can tell you that my boss is livid that I was picked to fly to Genovia over him.”  
  
“You actually know what you’re doing though,” Jared tells her. “I don’t.”  
  
“You’re along to make certain that our labeling designs meet with the accepted standards for Genovian pears in marketing,” Sophia reiterates the reason that Jared found himself on an overseas trip.  
  
“Why am I really here?” Jared demands. “For real this time,” he adds on.  
  
“Same reason I’m here,” Sophia tells him. “We have leverage. We’re recognizable.”  
  
“We’re infamous,” Jared argues.  
  
“Maybe,” Sophia concedes, “but infamy is better than nothing. If I can broker a deal for Genovian pears, we might be able to gain back our market shares in the premium markets.”  
  
“But you’re the one who was photographed the most,” Jared reminds her. “I don’t see why I’m here.”  
  
“Because I’m not a guy,” Sophia huffs.  
  
“So we’re dealing with sexist fruit growers?” Jared balks. He doesn’t like that. He was raised better than that. His parents would not approve of giving money to sexist assholes.  
  
“No, Jensen’s gay,” Sophia blushes as she says it. “If they think that we’ve got ties, they’re going to think you’re the one who has them.”  
  
“Mike was just his bodyguard,” Jared reminds her. “He was a fake.”  
  
“You need to read more,” Sophia chides. “Prince Jensen is very open about his mostly homosexual leanings. There was a whole article outlining his plans for surrogacy when it comes time for an heir and the legal details surrounding it.”  
  
“Oh,” Jared says. All he had really done was wallow, avoid the press and come to terms with Jensen’s secret and all of the problems it had caused. He’d been introspective. Apparently, Sophia hadn’t been.  
  
“So, you think you can live with being window dressing for me while I make some deals?” Sophia asks, smiling in that predatory, knowing way of hers.  
  
Jared nods. He kind of owes her.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Sometime around the third hour of negotiations, Jared takes a walk. The pear farm is nice. It has a path specifically built for tourists to walk, and if he hears one more word about optimum flavor versus texture for processed and canned ‘meat’ he is going to start making inappropriate jokes.  
  
He has sketched so many pears and logos that his hand has long since cramped, and they have at least five more orchards to visit before the trip is over. Sophia needs to land more than one contract to make the plan feasible. They can’t be held to one supplier, and Jared is already tired of all the talk.  
  
“You should try the red ones,” a familiar voice comments from off in the shadows.  
  
Jared doesn’t jump. He doesn’t.  
  
“What are you doing here?” he demands as he crunches over the gravel path to where Jensen is sitting underneath an arbor.  
  
“It’s my country,” Jensen tells him as he gestures at the seat next to him.  
  
Jared rolls his eyes.  
  
“Fine. It’s my orchard,” Jensen amends.  
  
“Yours?” Jared repeats dumbly.  
  
“This and a few others,” Jensen tells him. “This is our best organic farm. I’m not certain your sister should be haggling for the produce here. Then again, I don’t think that you should be here at all.”  
  
Jared flushes, but glares at him for the offense. “All of my paperwork is in order. I have every right to be here.”  
  
“Not what I meant,” Jensen tells him. “I meant that you are not a business man, Jared. You’re sociable, affable even. But that world in there is your sister’s.”  
  
“Well, my world isn’t exactly flush with cash,” Jared informs him. “I lost my jobs thanks to you.”  
  
Jensen looks away. “I am sorry for that. I… I am deeply sorry for that.”  
  
The apology is heartfelt, but so terribly formal that it makes Jared uncomfortable. He hasn’t been holding a grudge about it so much as he’s been worrying about his income. His artwork has always been his passion, not bartending.  
  
“I could offer you a job?” Jensen proposes before Jared can find the words to accept the apology.  
  
The offer upsets him a bit. “I already have a pity job, thanks.”  
  
Jensen flushes. “I know, I just… I’m sort of asking for myself.”  
  
“You don’t need to feel guilt. Not too guilty anyway,” Jared amends.  
  
“It isn’t guilt,” Jensen tells him. “It’s growth. Grandmother sent me back to America to find closure, and I didn’t. I couldn’t, not in that short amount of time. But I did realize that I was missing something.”  
  
“Good fries?” Jared jokes.  
  
“We do have a McDonalds, you know.” Jensen says.  
  
“I know. Just, what could you want from me?”  
  
“Perspective, companionship,” Jensen says with a wave of his hand.  
  
“You’re going to pay me to be your friend?” That sounds like a rather dubious proposal to Jared.  
  
“I might just be thinking about getting in your pants,” Jensen admits.  
  
“You realize that is actually worse. Unless prostitution is legal here. It isn’t, is it?”  
  
“No! Lord, don’t let people even hear that thought!” Jensen’s face is flushed as he glances around looking for any eavesdroppers. “I just want you to hang around for a while. I want to fix things between us, one way or the other. I just thought you might like full disclosure about my possible intentions.”  
  
“So you want to pay me to stay in your country for your own personal, emotional needs? And possibly to get in my pants?”  
  
“That sounds sort of pathetic when you repeat it back to me,” Jensen admits.  
  
“It depends on what job you expect me to be doing,” Jared hedges.  
  
Jensen smiles a little at that. “Well, the official state artisan position has been vacant since I fired my mother from it as my first royal act of power.”  
  
“That sounds… ominous.”  
  
“It wasn’t like she was doing much aside from shipping artwork over on my father’s credit card. We need something new and modern to tie back to our past. Genovia is a land of fruit, but is also full of history and potential. We need to cultivate our arts and display something other than pears.”  
  
“And you think I could do that?”  
  
Jensen smiles at him. “Jared, my mother isn’t my favorite person in the world, but I am still her son. I know good work when I see it. You are more than qualified for it. Besides, it pays better than being your sister’s personal assistant.”  
  
“Technically, I’m the assistant to her boss,” Jared corrects.  
  
“So you get paid fifteen more cents per hour for that or something?” Jensen asks.  
  
“You’re kind of an ass, you know that?” Jared’s words aren’t a question, and he makes sure his face informs Jensen of that fact.  
  
“No, I don’t. Nobody would dare tell me that,” Jensen replies easily. “That is why I want you here, so I can learn myself again.”  
  
“That’s cheesy,” Jared says.  
  
“It’s the truth,” Jensen counters back.  
  
What can Jared say to that? The only answer that he can think to give is, “Yes.”


End file.
